Toronto, Canada, Feb 24, 2009 / 10:05 am
On Tuesday morning Archbishop of Denver Charles J. Chaput addressed 100 business, banking and legal leaders in downtown Toronto. Noting the moral imperative to live for others, the archbishop urged them to “light the marketplace” with generosity, justice and honesty.
After a Mass presided over by Archbishop of Toronto Thomas Collins at St. Paul’s Basilica, Archbishop Chaput opened his talk at the business leaders' breakfast with some general comments on history:
“History is to a nation or people what memory is to individual persons: It roots us in reality. It gives us a context for the present. And it teaches us some of the lessons we need to build a better future,” he said.
He noted several historical facts united by the power of money: religious Muslims’ avoidance of interest as a financial tool; past Catholic opinion that interest charged on money is a sin; the Protestant countries’ general economic outperformance of Catholic nations; and Karl Marx’s inspiration of millions of people and a century of “revolutionary action” despite the “huge holes in his ideas.”